


Wallis and Anne

by Fionas Apple (dawnmarie)



Series: Then to Now - History Boys [2]
Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types
Genre: Classroom, M/M, assignment, headache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:09:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnmarie/pseuds/Fionas%20Apple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irwin leads some of the History Boys in a study session before they start at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wallis and Anne

     Irwin hasn't been feeling well since the accident. He was never the most emotionally or physically fit of men but the residual aches and pains, not to mention the guilt from the crash had caused him to feel off. Not ill enough to call off the two week long study group that Crowther, Posner, Ahktar, Dakin and Scripps had insisted he lead before they started at Oxford in the fall, but unwell enough that during his waking hours he had been vacillating between dizziness and a vague feeling of being underwater. Then there was the topic of that drink. Euphemistically speaking of course, because both he and Dakin had both known that that drink meant something else entirely. And if he hadn’t have been clever enough at the time to catch on to that then Dakin had made his intentions plenty clear.  How about you suck me off, Dakin had said at the time. Yeah, Irwin definitely had wanted to do _that_.

     Still, why Dakin had decided to take part in the group and why he had decided to lead it was a mystery. It was not as if anything were going to happen _now_ , was it? The accident on the back of Hector's bike had pretty firmly cemented _that drink_ as being part of the distant past, a bit of history that unlike most events, would not and could not repeat itself. At least that is what Irwin liked to tell himself.

*****

     As the boys bounded into the makeshift classroom Irwin had put together in his study, he threw his left arm back, pointing towards the assignment on the portable blackboard he nicked off the A/V department at Cutler's before he quit, no make that 'resigned due to illness and accident.' He feels like it is an easy enough assignment that he shouldn’t be pestered until mid-morning at the earliest, but at the same time not so easy the lads will get restless.

_Compare and Contrast Wallis Simpson and Anne Boleyn and their effect on the monarchy in at least 4000 words. NO GERUNDS AND NO EUPHEMISMS!_

     "Are you drunk sir?" Akhtar asks.

     It is a reasonable question, Irwin concludes. Except for the 'no gerunds and no euphemisms,' the assignment has nothing of the twisty-turny spin history on its head and give it your own interpertation that his old teachings were based on. "No. I'm not drunk. Headache." _Which isn't a lie,_ Irwin thinks as he starts fumbling with papers on his desk--reports that he never actually got to finish grading from the end of term as well as some bills that he realises are past due. Finally he gives up on appearing productive, looks back up and notices that Akhtar is still staring. "Is there a problem, Akhtar?"

     "No. Sir."

     "Fine, get to work then." Irwin even threw in a glare for good measure. It seemed to work because Akhtar finally took his eyes off him and started working on the assignment.

     "Sir, sir!"

     "Huh? Yes, Dakin." Irwin was waiting for it. What _it_ was he wasn't entirely sure but the way Dakin was looking at him was making him nervous. Nothing new on that front though. Dakin had always made him nervous. Just being around Dakin had even at one time, made him really, truly believe that they had already had that drink. How Irwin had managed to come out of his delusion fast enough to keep his sanity was something that he could only thank god for.

     "Were they worth it? Wallis and Anne, I mean. Edward abdicated the throne and we know the sorry mess that Henry made. Why not just have a good shagging and be done with it? It seems odd."

     A small smile almost formed on Irwin's lips. Of course Dakin would turn this into a discourse on sex. "Wallis and Edward were in love."

     "Love is an illusion, there is only lust, _sir_."

     "Ah, sod off Dakin," Crowther said as he started scribbling some notes down, "love is real. Your problem is that you think with your dick so much you can’t see it."

 


End file.
